Mural project celebrates the past

Jeff Green | Mar 18, 2010

The mural is available for viewing during business hours at the Child Centre.

A trio of local artists have worked with students from St. James Major Catholic School, and Sharbot Lake, Hinchinbrooke and Land O'Lakes public schools to complete “The Living Mural Project”, which was installed last week in the board room at the Child Centre in Sharbot Lake.

Potter Joanne Pickett and printmaker Martina Field ran an art school for area children, called the Northern School of Fine Arts, at the Child Centre for several years, and when they stopped running the school they wanted to put together a project that would have a permanent impact on the local community.

“Joanne and I helped out with a mural project at Sharbot Lake Public School one time, and we thought it would be a good idea to work with children to build a mural that was all about the local geography and history,” Martina Field said about the beginning of the project.

With some funding from the Northern School of Fine Arts and a grant from the Community Foundation of Greater Kingston, there was enough money available to kick-start the project.

Field and Pickett brought another artist, Carol Pepper, into the fold and the three of them began to go into the schools to talk to the local children about the history of the area in order to motivate the children to put that history into a visual form. They enlisted Danka Brewer from the Shabot Obaadjiwan First Nation to talk to the students who were working on the panel depicting the Aboriginal heritage of the region, and Shirley Peruniak of the Oso Historical Society talked about life after the arrival of European settlers. The largest panel, which ended up being the centrepiece, was devoted to the landscape itself, in late winter, with no reference to human activity.

The clay tiles that serve as the mural's border were created in a two or three-hour session in each of six class visits. 

“To decorate the tiles I gave the students sheets of paper and paper and had them do a large drawing based on one of the three topics we were working with. We then took chunks of the drawings and the students traced them onto soft clay tiles that I had prepared for them. Students then cut out the bas-relief images using the thin clay slabs,” said Joanne Pickett.

The tiles were then fired at Joanne’s studio in Arden and coated with red iron oxide.

The painted collages required more time in the classroom as students first painted a background onto the plywood panel and then cut the objects (buildings, trees, animals, etc.) out of cardboard and "gessoed" them to add thickness. After the gesso dried the pieces were glued on to the background and painted.

A few days before the mural was installed, children from the homework club at the Child Centre were enlisted to finish off the work on the centre panel.

It was only then that the panels and the tiles were assembled and the three artists who had overseen the project could see how the muted tones and texture of the tiles worked with the brighter colours of the panels.

“It really exceeded my expectations,” said Joanne Pickett.  

When the project was completed photos and a letter was sent to each of the schools that participated, and an article about it found its way onto the Limestone School Board website courtesy of Sharbot Lake Public School Principal David Allison.

The project was a collaborative effort that included the Child Centre, the local schools, and the three artists.

The funding support from the Community Foundation of Greater Kingston covered a portion of the costs of the project, but there was a shortfall, and in the coming weeks the artists will be conducting a fundraising campaign to try to cover it.

The mural is available for viewing during business hours at the Child Centre. For information call 613-279-2244.